This is a wrestling forum. We all like wrestling. As such any vote not cast for Fire Pro is a vote wasted. Let me run down the ways in which fire pro was better than every other wrestling game ever created.
1) Better Roster
The version of Fire Pro Returns that I imported from Italy has a prebuilt Roster of 327 wrestlers. This includes more or less every active professional wrestler from Japan at the time of creation. Every American wrestler who went to Japan. Every senior Mixed Martial Artist or shootfighter from Japan. And a lot of the legends of the industry like Lou Thesz and Hulk Hogan.
2) Better Creation Tools.
But I want to play as American wrestlers I hear you say. No worries, Fire Pro comes with what is unquestionably the deepest CAW system ever produced. It contains something like 500 prebuilt heads, hundreds of which are specifically designed to resemble American tallent. Couple in fire pro's ability to modify the colour gradient of every component and its highly defined layering system, and there is almost nobody who you can't create.
That's not the big part though, there have been lots of other games were you could create a lot of Guys. Fire pro offers something much better that, to my knowledge, no wrestlers game has ever offered before. Customisable AI.
Not only can you make your guy look like John Cena, but you can actually program him to fight like him. You can control when he goes for pin covers and when he uses his power moves. You can make him chain moves together (like the spin out power bomb and the fine knuckle shuffle) and control how often John goes for each and every move in his arsanal.
Do you want Hulk Hogan to get his ass kicked for 15 minuets then unleash a torrent of unstoppable offence? You can.
Do you want Jeff Hardy to show no regard for life and limb? You can.
Do you want Mick Foley to constantly go under the ring for weapons? No problem.
Do you want Vince McMahon to spend the match running away from his opponents like a pussy, then run in and roll them up when they're hurt? You can do that too.
Fire Pro's customisable AI puts it far, far above any other wrestling game that exists, and there is a reason why this game still has such a strong user community, despite being a discontinued series. Fire Pro is a favourite tool of e-fedders simulators because you really can make your guys fight the way you want them to. Given that the AI in Smackdown vs Raw has only just discovered how to execute finishers out of the corner, I call this pretty impressive.
3) Better move list.
Fire pro has more moves than any other wrestling game. Ever.
Not only does it have a bigger move set, but it also has one of the other things that sets it aside from every other wrestling game out there. Customisable reversals. No Mercy had this, but to a much smaller degree. When creating your guy you can choose whether he is an orthodox wrester, a technician, a shoot fighter, a cruiserweight, a luchadore, a heel, a powerhouse, a giant, a martial artist, an armature wrestler, a greco roman wrester, a kick boxer or even if they happen to be Muta or Tiger Mask. What this will effect is not only how they carry themselves around the ring, but also how they counter moves.
A luchadore will reverse a powerbomb into a hurricarana whilst a powerhouse will turn it into back body drop. Similarly, a technician will will turn it into a bridging pin fall and somebody else will do something totally different. This has been programmed in for every move in the entire game.
The result is matches that are not only fun to play, but also fun to watch. More so than any other game ever made, fire pro actually feels like you're watching wrestling; and no amount of rendering by THQ is going to help them achieve that.
4) Better Gameplay.
Every other wrestling game ever made is either bad, or slow. The best game play we've ever had over here were No Mercy and Kings of Colosseum, but when you look back on them, both were so slow as to be practically unplayable. The speed of fire pro is customisable, which is a good thing because strikes and grapples are reflex based. It is physically impossible to button mash your way though a fire pro match, and if you try you'll loose in a matter of minutes. Fire pro has batter balance, a more fluid grappling system and better computer AI than any other wrestling game ever made. Throw in ten different difficulty settings and half a dozen game play speeds and what you get is a challenge that never gets old.
Another reason it never gets old is that fighting an opponent really feels like fighting them. Don't try to back suplex Vader because he'll probably reverse it, and if Vader hits you with a power move there is a very realistic chance that you will never get up from it. Similarly, if you think you're going to get Lou Thesz or Antonio Inoki in a submission you can think again. Unless your a specialist in that field, you wont stand a chance.
When Hulk Hogan starts taunting you better run for the hills, because if he catches you know you're going down for the three. Don't throw Cactus Jack out of the ring, because there's a very real possibility that he'll come back with a barbwire 2x4.
Fire pro is largely based off Japan, so US gimmick matches aren't included. Instead you get a host of goodies from the Japanese death match federations. You want barb wire, land mines, electricity and florescent tubes? There all here. Fuck only knows why.
For the more conservative mind, you've still got the cage match, battle royals, elimination tag and a host of other things. You also get MMA, shoot fighting and a few other modes.
I feel like I've been going on for ages, and I still haven't done more than scratch the surface. Want to create you're own promotion? You can. You can customise the ring including putting you own, personally drawn logo onto it. You can design the referees and have the officiate how you want (make a guy who counts slowly for PPV matches, or one who gets bumped for ages if you want to sim TNA) design the belts and have them defended.
There there's the book this mode that in 12 months I still haven't found time to explore. Then there's the fact that there's space for something like 500 CAWs, and there are edit packs out there that will provide you with everybody form WWE, TNA, WCW, ECW, ROH and will give you all the rings (complete with logos) and the staff and everyhting else you could want.
The only area fire pro looses out in is graphics, and once you get to fire pro returns, they honestly aren't bad. Sure they're 2D, but because of that you don't get constant clipping issues, epic loading times, you can have eight guys in the ring at once, and you're rewarded with 20 times the content offered in any other wrestling game ever made.
Fire Pro is simply the best, and if it doesn't get through then it's a fucking crime.